Panasonic unveils Toughbook Android Tablet

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Most tablets are made of shiny glass and metal that can’t take a two-story drop or a little moisture. They’re meant to be nestled in a bag when not in use, and only to be used in offices and homes. Panasonic understands that there may be a future for tablets in some of the world’s most demanding environments, and has built the Toughbook tablet to meet that demand.

The Toughbook tablet is a 10.1-inch model with a high-brightness matte display for readability in direct sunlight and low light environments alike. It’ll also include an active stylus for use with point-of-sale systems or other record keeping or note-taking applications. Panasonic also said the Toughbook tablet will come with built-in GPS, and come in Wi-Fi and 3G/4G models.

Other details about the features of the device are sparse, but the images Panasonic released of the Toughbook tablet imply there will be rear and front-facing cameras for photos and video chats. The promo images also show the Toughbook tablet running Android 2.2 “Froyo,” not Android 3.0 “Honeycomb,” but that could change between now and launch.

Along the bottom of the tablet, you’ll see the standard Android interface buttons: menu, home, and back. There’s also a “user” button, which implies that the Toughbook tablet will have some feature for multiple user profiles. There’s also a battery indicator light, a notification light, and the power button.

Panasonic says that they’re targeting the enterprise with the Toughbook tablet. If that’s the case, it would make sense that they’ve added some ability to have multiple user profiles. They note that the Toughbook tablet will be just as rugged and damage resistant as any device in the Toughbook line of products, and is designed with enterprise security in mind.

We’ll have to wait for Panasonic to reveal everything under the hood that will power the Toughbook tablet, and when it’ll be released. The new tablet will be on display at the Panasonic booth at the InfoComm conference in Orlando Florida this week.